are you the brutal heart?
by coffee-stained lips
Summary: "Make it a good show." / Clove&Cato. Oneshot. Reuploaded.


**a/n: i am so fucking in love with the hunger games it's not even funny anymore. i never thought i'd love a series the way i love harry potter, but they're both just so amazing. and thanks to suzanne collins' great writing - and of course isabelle fuhrman's wonderful acting skills - clove has recently become the center of my fandom universe. and along with her, clato. this probably isn't my best fic, but i think it's okay, and i also really just wanted to write something hunger games and publish it. enjoy.**

**the title of this fic belongs to bedouin soundclash from their song "brutal hearts."**

he'd like to say his favorite thing about her is her eyes. how they're that dark blue like the midnight sky, how they shine with wild passion when she's got a knife in hand. he'd like to say his favorite thing about her is her rugged determination or her animal stubbornness, in spite of how much trouble it gets them both in. he'd even like to say his favorite thing about her is her ferocious bloodlust. he'd especially like to say that.

but he will say nothing because having a favorite thing about her might mean he _loves__ her_, and their relationship has never been that.

and they want to keep it that way.

.

they were born for this kind of life. to fight, to kill.

(but sometimes, when it's too dark to see each other's faces, she'll tell him the truth. how she wants to be a doctor because she loves the sight of blood, and live in a big house with a big yard and trees as far as the eye could see [he suggests district 7; she scoffs].

and he'll tell her how he hopes he can make it through one more year of reapings before he can stand on the sidelines. he doesn't tell her how he doesn't think he'll survive the four she'll have to endure.)

.

"what if i get reaped?" she whispers. he's leaning against her doorframe while her grandmother gets dressed. she's playing with the shiny red bow tied around her waist, the silk shifting through her fingers like water (_like blood_).

"then no one else'll stand a chance." he says encouragingly, an arrogant smile twitching up his lips.

"no," she says, almost desperately, turning to him. her eyes, always so dark and so violent, glisten with dread. "what if _i_ get reaped, but..." she doesn't finish. she doesn't have to. he's by her side in an instant, grabbing her by her shoulders and looking her dead-on.

"i'll volunteer. i won't leave you, clove."

a sigh of relief. a smirk on her lips.

he's as good as dead.

.

they're all lined up by gender, girls on the left, boys on the right. there's an air of excitement hovering over them all, with eager chitchat and proud smiles on parents' faces. cato looks over the shorter boys to find her; when he catches clove's eyes, he winks.

she rolls her eyes. he just grins.

there's the big spectacle, the video with the smoke and the screams and the booming capitol voiceover. they've watched this video countless times, learned it by heart, and it doesn't even matter anymore. only a few eyes fall, only a few families cover their faces to hide the sadness.

then the escort, a man with too much green eye shadow and lipstick and a puffy purple suit, smiles sadistically as he dives his arm into the glass bowl that holds the names of every teen girl in district 2. cato holds his breath as he holds the tiny slip of paper in front of his eyes and says clearly the one name he didn't want to hear.

everyone applauds, and clove pompously sashays up to stand beside the man. her gaze goes straight to him. he sees how pale she is.

he doesn't even let the escort fish out a name from the boys' bowl. he volunteers and there's hoots and screams for him; he hustles up beside clove, and announces his name for the cameras. her color has returned and she looks excited, even.

he wants to grab her hand, but he knows she'd just shove it away.

.

when night's fallen in the capitol, and they're watching the bustling city with its dots of light and brightly colored buildings through the window in his bedroom, he feels like he'd like to kiss her. she's beautiful, in that unique, vicious way of hers. their kisses would not be soft, with her; they'd be rough and raw and passionate. she'd bite his lips and draw blood, and scratch at his skin like a rabid animal of some sort, and he'd bring her slight frame into his until they were one, crashing like waves and flickering like flames.

he could do it. quickly. there'd be no time for questions, no time for consequences. one of them's bound to die anyway - may as well fit in as many cheap thrills as they can.

she turns to him suddenly, and her eyes - holy _fuck_, those eyes - they seal the deal, and soon they're colliding and collapsing. he moans her name, she screeches his. there's hair-pulling, back-scratching, tongue-twisting. droplets of blood scatter on the sheets as her nails dig into him, and he is enthralled by it. nothing is better than the pain of victory.

"that glimmer girl," she hisses between kisses, barely audible above the noise of their breath, fiery and hot. "she's a fucking hoe."

"i know it."

"you looked at her."

"so what?" he closes his eyes and envisions hers, temptingly dark.

"if you ever run to her, i'll cut your heart out of your chest."

he laughs, but only because he knows she's serious. he laces his fingers in her hair and whispers, "i like wilder girls."

"good." she says, before sinking even deeper into him.

.

he promises her the girl on fire's death by her knife. she hated her from the very beginning, when she rode out in that chariot like a queen. district 12 stealing the glory from district 2 - a disgrace.

he asks just one thing in return: that when two are left, she'll kill him too.

"make it a good show, bitch." he whispers when they're alone and she's dazzling in her interview dress, all ablaze in orange. (a real girl on fire, he thinks.)

"oh, i always do, asshole." she whispers back, and he feels chills go up his spine.

.

_five._

the cornucopia lays before them, filled to the brim with knives and axes and swords, all glittering in the sunlight.

_four_.

twenty-four of them, steadying on their platforms. some are eager, muscles rippling; others tremble like leaves on a tree.

_three_.

he sees her from across the way, licking her lips and eyeing the competition hungrily.

_two._

she looks over at girl on fire, and he knows she doesn't stand a chance.

_one._

.

he doesn't realize the "she" would be _her_.

.

_clove, clove, clove._

he can hear her. he can feel her. her scream rips through the cold air like a blade on flesh.

"cato! cato!"

he's not going to make it, he knows. he's not going to save her. she's going to -

he can't imagine her like that, sprawled on the ground, the life gone from her body, the fire gone from her eyes. he can't imagine her as anything but the blazing spitfire who would kiss him as eagerly as she'd stab him. he can't - he won't.

but then he sees her, drowning in her own blood, eyes open and body still. he runs to her, kneels down before her. he can taste salt on his tongue but he holds it back because this is the hunger games and you don't cry in the hunger games. but -

he thinks of her manic laugh. her deadly smile. her crazy knife-wielding ways. and her eyes. the eyes that stare at him with no soul (_though she didn't have much of one to begin with_).

he leans his head onto hers, and forces himself to whisper, "i'll kill them. i'll kill them all for you."

everything was always for her.

**a/n: please give me feedback if you read it all the way through :) if you have any tips for writing clato better, i'd gladly take them because they're not the easiest ship to master, and i'm pretty sure this sucks.**


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